We present Iruka, an app that accompanies families, especially those who need support from various professionals in the development of their children. Our app, available for Android (soon for iOS), allows you to centralize, manage and organize the information of the various specialists who visit and helps in the organization of consultations and agenda. It collects information from doctors, educational psychologists, psychomotor therapists, teachers, psychologists, among others.

Why an app?

«Iruka was designed with and for parents. It is specially designed for those who need to periodically consult different technicians and professionals. Accompanying the upbringing and development of children. Iruka records, documents, schedules and centralizes all the information related to therapies and long-term treatment,» says Beatriz Pereira, Project Manager of the project.

We introduce you to its different functionalities: 

– Document Backpack. Allows you to save documents, images, audio and video so that you have them at hand before the consultation with the professional.
– Assistant that accompanies you. Goes with you wherever you go, helping you remember the visits your child must attend.
– Remembers your information. Allows you to retrieve a previous moment in a quick and practical way. Keeps all your information stored in date order.
– Covers the entire development. Besides contemplating your child’s health, it also includes all the other activities that are part of his/her development.
– Organize your events. Keep a list of all events attended.
– Record your notes and ideas. Within each event you record, you can add notes and documents that emerged from the visit with the professional.

The story behind IRUKA

The origin of this project is Think UP, an event promoted in 2017 by the Pyxiana Social Responsibility team. The goal: to generate technological projects with social impact. Several ideas were presented and one of them was the digitization of the Down syndrome child’s ID card.

«The original idea was to digitalize the card for children with trisomy 21, a cardboard card issued by the Ministry of Public Health to all children for monitoring the medical care they receive from birth to 10 years of age. In the case of children with Down syndrome, a similar card is issued, which contains a little more information, but is insufficient,» explains Beatriz.

From idea to app

To define the user interface and project requirements we use a hybrid methodology that takes elements from Design Thinking and Lean UX. The DesignThinking process begins with a deep understanding of the needs of the users involved in the solution we are developing and their environment. We must be able to put ourselves in the shoes of those people to generate solutions consistent with their realities.

«Our starting point was Empathy: to really put ourselves in the shoes of the parents and relatives of children who present more challenges in their development. We conducted 12 interviews in which we detected that there is no centralized place where the child’s family has all the information from all the specialists that attend to them,» explains Victoria Perez, UX lead.

In addition to working with families with children with Down syndrome, IRUKA approached parents with children with autism and teachers specialized in working with them to get their point of view. We also took the experience to Medellin to validate the project in other countries, confirming that it also applies to children with other challenges such as deafness, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), among others. There are many families living the same reality. That is why we decided not to limit ourselves to a group of children.

An Iruka for everyone

We want Iruka to serve all those families who need to consult different technicians and professionals in the development of their children. It aims to be much more than a digital health card. We want it to become an assistant that accompanies the lives of children with challenges and centralizes all their treatments. To facilitate the management of information for the monitoring and evolution of the child.

The Iruka team has the collaboration of several Pyxis colleagues and ecosystem companies such as Infra DevOps, Sacapuntas and Guayoyoyo who are actively working on the project. And the support of nearby companies such as Abstracta and TMachine. We continue working to make the necessary updates to incorporate improvements and ensure the best experience. Soon we will enable the alerts/notifications feature.

If you liked the project, have any questions or just want to send us a comment, do not hesitate to write to iruka@pyxis.test